


I'm bigger than my body, I'm colder than this home

by kaljara



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alive Noah, Background Relationships, Canon compliant later on, Gen, Pre-Canon, The Raven Gang as children, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-18 16:31:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4712771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaljara/pseuds/kaljara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her brain can only register the faintest of memories and thoughts outside of the moments she lives in, and fear remains her constant companion and adversary. Sometimes she thinks that there was nothing before the fear.<br/>But that's not true. Because before she became a pretty, empty carcass, before she was tucked into the center of Cabeswater and the Greywaren's inscrutable dreams--she was more. She'd had a name, and it hadn't been Orphan Girl. She'd had a story, albeit not a pleasant one.<br/>She had been more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. perish at the thought

She's a hollow shell, the place between her ribcage filled with yawning emptiness instead of a pumping heart, her veins containing no moving blood. She's a disastrous thing, pieced together by trembling hands and whispered voices that belong to the creatures in the trees or ARE the trees--she's never been quite sure which one. Her brain can only register the faintest of memories and thoughts outside of the moments she lives in, and fear remains her constant companion and adversary. Sometimes she thinks that there was nothing before the fear.

 

But that's not true. Because before she became a pretty, empty carcass, before she was tucked into the center of Cabeswater and the Greywaren's inscrutable dreams--she was more. She'd had a name, and it hadn't been Orphan Girl. She'd had a story, albeit not a pleasant one.

 

She had been more.

 

And now she is nothing.

 

**************************

 

Born and bred in Henrietta. It was a nasty phrase, something that got lodged in her throat and stuck in her teeth when it finally managed to claw its way out. To be born in Henrietta was to become Henrietta, and the thought always pained her more than anything else. She didn't want to belong to a town so full of hidden monsters. It felt like she would catch that monstrosity if she gazed too long at her surroundings, if she let it seep into her blood like she knew it would eventually. Or maybe it was already in her blood, lying dormant.

 

As a small child, she'd had an insurmountable amount of hope that things would get better, that one day she would claw her way out of the weed-choked yard of her trailer park home and walk away, unscathed and stronger. Oh, how she had hoped. But hope was a very hard thing to cling to when at age seven, you were given your first bloody lip for walking in on your dad shooting up. Hope was a very foreign thing to a little girl who had to wear long sleeves in the summer to hide the bruises that never completely faded.

 

There was only darkness, for a while, until one day she took her rusted, hand-me-down bike and pedaled hard and fast away from her home, fear pounding inside of her in time with her heartbeat. It was a different kind of fear, the fear that makes you run for all you're worth even though you know the consequences will be much worse when you return to what you were running from. That terror consumed her until she could barely breathe, gasping against the handle bars as her white blonde hair beat her in the face, a stinging reprimand. She was on the other side of the trailer park, then, a place she had never been allowed to go.

 

There was a thick barbed wire fence to her right, nearly obscured by tall brown weeds, and to her left were three trailers practically stacked on one another. They were newer model double-wides, and beside the first two, there were newer cars, their paint glittering. Her dad's car had looked like that once before he wrecked it in a drunken stupor. 

 

She slowed her bike and looked at the last house, which was shaded by a huge oak tree that seemed almost reluctant to do its job--the porch was out of its protection by only a few inches. And on the porch sat a boy.

 

He was a tan thing, with peeling skin and knobbly knees connected to long legs and a thin, angular torso almost as elegant as his face. He had a fine-boned Henrietta face, the kind she herself had, but it was odd to see it reflected back at her. Not because she hadn't seen one like it--she did at school and in her own mirror--but the boy's face was much like her own because it held the same ache she had deep within her, an ache she couldn't even put a name to. The boy had a wariness about him, his shoulders hunched forward and his pale blue eyes trained and steady. His bare torso was peppered with green and yellow bruises, and beneath his flop of hair-- hair the same color as the weeds by the barb wire fence-- she saw a deep cut on his eyebrow that was already turning purple.

 

He was a pitiful sight, too skinny and too unhappy for a child no more than eight years old. She came to a complete halt and climbed off of her bike in a daze, letting it fall to the ground with a solid noise that made her flinch. The boy continued to stare at her, his legs crossed in front of him and a sweating glass of ice water clutched firmly in his hands like it held the key to his fate.

 

She wet her lips and matched his stare, trying to let him know that they were one and the same, cut from the same rough-hewn, grubby cloth. Born and bred in Henrietta. The thought made her stomach curdle, and instead of offering the boy a greeting, she bent over and threw up in a patch of dandelions.

 

Mortification made her cheeks heat up instantly. When she looked up again, the boy was standing in front of her, his suspicion turning to concern. "Are you--are you alright?" The words were gentle, a timid question delivered with urgency.

 

"I will be if you help me hide," she replied hoarsely, because it was the first thing she could think to choke out.

 

His fair eyebrows furrowed, and he worried his bottom lip between his teeth for a few seconds. But then he held out a hand to her, a solemn look replacing his uncertainty. "Okay."

 

She grabbed his hand gratefully and tried to ignore whatever was trickling down her face. She thought it may be sweat, but after the boy hoisted her to her feet, he said in that same quiet, measured voice: "Your nose is bleeding." She wiped it hastily, on the cusp of embarrassment yet again. The boy didn't seem to mind. "My name is Adam."

 

It was an ordinary name for a not-so-ordinary boy. She felt like maybe no one else realized it, but Adam was special. Maybe even he didn't know it. But she had been gifted with intuition that let her know when people were going to make something of themselves. What Adam would do in the future was a mystery to her, however.

 

"I'm Aurelia," she told him with her nose plugged, trying to staunch the bleeding. "Aurelia Jean. Only my mama says the whole thing, though, when I'm in trouble." She cast a nervous look around. She was expecting her father to show up at any minute. "Most people call me A.J."

 

Adam picked up her bike without prompt and began to push it forward, cutting a path through the dirt. She moved alongside him, her old green dress scratchy and sweaty against her skin. Adam's eyes, the same washed-out blue as the sky, regarded her thoughtfully as the two marched along down the dirt path, her bike a barrier between them. "I like Aurelia better," Adam finally said with a small, shy smile.

 

She blinked at him owlishly, pleasantly surprised. She like Aurelia better than A.J. too, but unfortunately the nickname had stuck to her like a chewed gum to the bottom of a shoe.

 

Adam had a very nice smile, one that accentuated the smattering of freckles across his cheekbones and gave homage to the dimple on his left cheek. She felt honored to have seen the smile, because something told her he didn't wear one very often. 

 

"Where are you taking me?" she asked after a pause. Her hands were smeared with red red red and dirt caked her ratty sandals and was gritty between her toes. She and Adam had been walking at a quick pace to get nowhere, by the looks of it. All she saw ahead of her was the dirt path and further on, trees.

 

Adam pointed in the general direction of the Nowhere and said: "There." Which maybe in his mind was an answer, but she didn't feel like it was a very acceptable one.

 

Nevertheless, she continued to walk, her pace only quickening when she thought of her father, purple-faced and screaming about how she was a waste of space, useless, as she ran out the door. When the trees started to shade them because of their proximity, she figured that they were what Adam had been pointing at all along.

 

She surged forward, grateful for the welcoming coolness of the shade, but Adam latched onto her wrist before she could make it more than a few steps. She winced at the sudden pressure, and he immediately let go, mollified by her reaction. It was clear that he didn't want to be the cause of anyone's pain, ever. She was familiar with the feeling. "Sorry. Sorry, I just--you gotta watch your step in here...there are snakes and things..." His accent slipped out, elongating with vowels. It made every word he said sound like an apology.

 

She let him lead after that, making sure she tread carefully, stepping gingerly over fallen logs and brush. There was a boulder she had to climb a few yards ahead, and she couldn't help but feel dubious about her ability to scale the huge rock. Adam was already climbing, though, looking at ease as his fingers and feet found purchase in nooks that she couldn't see. Adam didn't offer to help her, but her watched her with quiet scrutiny. He seemed like he trusted her to make it up the side of the rock, believed in her ability to haul herself to the top. Her doubt shriveled up and vanished, and gritting her teeth, she clambered up the boulder, her arms burning as she held the weight of her whole body.

 

She knew if she happened to lose her grip, Adam would have caught her, but assisting her otherwise wasn't what he had in mind. He wanted her to realize her potential. 

 

She wasn't as useless as her father said.

 

Together, the two children slid down the other side of the massive rock, eyes alight. Adam was grinning, not just smiling, and for a moment, she thought she had never seen such pure happiness. It radiated off of him and lapped at her own exterior, until she too was grinning uncontrollably. This deep in the woods, they were out of their fathers' reach, away from the yelling and the anxiety that normally coiled in their bellies like a snake, always ready to strike. Their houses had never felt like home--the trailers creaked with derision and their parents snarled with contempt. But the woods were home. The woods were dark and inviting, dangerous in a way that was predatory to all and didn't single them out. Dangerous in a way that didn't make them fear, not really.

 

Aurelia had never known a joy like this, in her seven years of life. She spun around in a circle, giggling as she tilted her head back and watched the leaves of the trees above whirl around in a mesh of greens and yellows. She only stopped spinning when Adam let out a peal of laughter, doubling over like the siund couldn't be contained in his battered, skinny frame. She was breathing heavily, happiness clawing at her heart like a rabid, foreign thing. Maybe...maybe they couldn't contain it within them. Maybe their hearts weren't big enough to hold it yet. One day, she thought. One day.

 

Adam stopped laughing and pointed behind her. "There's your hidin' place, Aurelia." Curious, she looked over her shoulder to see what he was gesturing at. Behind her was a tree like she had never seen before. It was huge and gnarled, its roots snaking out in all directions, overlapping in spots and fighting for space. The branches were too numerous to count, but each leafy bough was strewn with moss and vines, a sure sign of its vitality and age. She craned her head back to just glimpse at the top of the monstrous tree, and then her eyes trailed back down to its center. The center was ripped right open, revealing a gaping hole that seemed to spill light instead of drink it in.

 

She looked over at Adam, speechless. It was a wonderful thing, ancient but ageless, and she felt like it had always been there and always would be. Something about it was fantastical and odd, almost like it didn't belong in a place so devoid of other wonders. 

 

"It's so pretty," she breathed, because when words escaped her she tended to state the obvious. "Can we go inside?"

 

Adam's smile became wry, but he nodded anyway and walked by her, his shoes crunching withered fallen leaves and twigs alike as he made his way to the tree. She made her way after him, caution thrown to the wind and replaced by a deep sense of wonder. Adam looked like he could have been made of this wood, carved out by rough hands. She smiled at the thought and climbed into the cool shelter of the trunk, eyes widening when she realized that she and Adam weren't the only things inside. 

 

There were books upon books scattered around--books with faded covers and books with stickers that declared them property of the local library and books with no covers at all, their pages frayed and yellowed. She quirked a brow and Adam's face went pink. He studied his hands. "My dad throws them, sometimes," he admitted. "So I bring them here. To keep them safe."

 

"It's your own library," she remarked, trying to quell Adam's embarrassment. She understood it too well. Fondness welled up inside of her as she glanced around again. She let her hand--which was still smeared with tacky blood from her nose--rest against the inside of the tree subconsciously. She wasn't happy to see the blood cling to something so lovely, but there was nothing she could do to wipe it off. "Can you read something to me?" she asked suddenly, because Adam was staring at her again and the weight of his gaze made her feel like she needed to speak. "Please?"

 

Adam was hesitant for a moment, but then he nodded and patted the spot beside him. She sank to her knees, grateful for his acceptance. She wanted to hug him. Instead, she bumped her shoulder against his as a thanks and rested her head against the tree, watching as Adam picked up a book she was familiar with. The Bridge to Terabithia?

 

Adam made a couple of engine noises, looking pleased with himself, and then he began to read: "'Good. His dad had gotten the pickup going. He could get up now. Jess slid out of his bed and into his overalls. He didn't worry about a shirt because as soon as he began running he would be as hot as popping grease...'" Aurelia listened intently as Adam's voice became a gentle lull, his vowels long and full and weighty. 

 

Her eyelids became heavy, and finally, she drifted off to sleep, her head resting on Adam's shoulder as he continued to read about a boy and girl who created a whole new world for themselves. 

 

*******************************

 

When she went home, she wasn't as afraid as she had been before. She had Adam to thank for that small victory. 

 

But her father had snarled, "Stay away from that Parrish boy!", and that had been the end of it.

 

She never spoke to Adam Parrish again.


	2. The crooked kind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam Parrish had been easy enough for her to understand. But Noah Czerny was a different story, a conundrum of a boy. She should have minded.
> 
> She didn't.

She met Noah Czerny by accident. Or, more accurately, she met him because of an accident. Adam Parrish had appeared as her savior three years before, but Noah was in the present, and he was _present_. He had been zooming down one of the Henrietta backroads in his polished Mustang at a speed that was, alarmingly, more than twenty miles over the speed limit, a juice box straw and a laugh between his teeth. It was possible that his blaring music had distracted him, but it was more than likely his attempt to reach the actual juice box in the passenger seat that made him swerve. Swerve and almost hit her, because she was riding her skeleton of a bike to the convenience store to get a gallon of milk with the change she had saved up. She literally had to jump off her bike and roll on the hot asphalt to avoid being hit. Flying wasn't as pleasant as she had imagined.  
  
The decked-out red Mustang skidded to a halt a couple inches away from her face and about a millimeter away from her bike. Her heart was in her throat and the rest of her felt like it had permanently vacated her body at the sight. Her head pounded, and she stared down at her leg in confusion. There was gravel in her kneecap, looking as nasty as it felt.  
  
The boy killed the engine and jumped out of the car with an urgency that she wasn't familiar with. He was an undone thing, his floppy fair hair pushed back in a disarray and his brown eyes wide. He wore a uniform that she was familiar with-- that belonged to an Aglionby brat, as her father often seethed--but his didn't look very bratty. Rumpled was a better word; slept-in the more fitting phrase. "Fucking hell," he said without anger. He looked amazed, if anything, like she was an apparition. "Jesus Christ. I--are you okay? Didn't see you, I swear. Here, let me...Oh shit. Well shit. Your leg, kid. Shit." He crouched down and frowned, upset. Then he dropped the juice box straw and crushed it beneath his ragged Converse. "This blows. I'm really sorry."  
  
"It doesn't really hurt," she lied, because for some reason seeing this boy upset was unbearable. Her ears were ringing now. "You can leave."  
  
At ten years old, she was already wiser than most kids. Aged. Aglionby boys weren't nice or helpful. She knew that. She was surprised that this one had stopped at all. "Leave?" he puzzled. "Why would I do that? You have all of the gravel in Henrietta in your knee. Kiddo. Kid, look, I can take you to where you're headed." He sounded desperate. "Let me get you a bandage, or, shit, stitches? Do you need stitches?" He frowned at her leg again. "I'm not good at stuff like this." He ran a hand down the side of his face, distraught. "Wanna let me pull the rocks out?"  
  
She finally gave a jerky nod. Her skin was stinging too much for her to deny his help. The boy gave her a bright, crooked grin then, all pearly white teeth and squinted eyes. She was almost ready to forgive him. "Alright, kiddo. Alright, think about something nice for a second, okay?"  
  
She didn't have the heart to tell him that she didn't have many nice things to think about. She just gritted her teeth and stared up at the endless expanse of sky above her, trying not to focus on the pain of the rocks being pulled from her skin.  
  
The pressure finally receded a few moments later, ending with a perfunctory 'Tada!' from the boy. She managed to unclench her jaw and looked down fearfully, expecting the worst. But besides the dirt crusted on her skin and the blood dribbling down her leg onto the asphalt she was sitting on, her knee wasn't that badly damaged. She didn't think stitches would be necessary. "You're tough, kiddo," said the boy cheerfully, his eyes still crinkled at the corners. He jerked a careless hand to gesture at his car. "Let me take you where you need to go, alright? I can get you a bandage and some cream."  
  
He looked so unassuming, so disheveled and kind that it was hard for her to be skeptical of his intentions. But she wasn't an idiot. The boy wilted at her hesitation, but only momentarily. "I know! Here, you can hold my cell phone." He dug around in his pocket and then fished out a tiny, boxy device. Her eyes widened--it was the newest model of Nokia, the kind she often wistfully gazed at when its advertisements played on TV. He thrust it into her waiting hands. "There. Go ahead and punch in 911. Go ahead. Okay. Just don't hit call unless you feel like you need to. I'm not going to hurt you, kid," he continued, eyes sincere. "I just want to help."  
  
Aurelia frowned at the phone and then the boy. The phone and then the boy. And then she managed to climb to her feet, her leg aching, and hobbled over to the passenger side of the Mustang. The boy grinned again, like a child, and opened the door for her. She slid onto the leather seat carefully, avoiding the forgotten juice box as the boy shuffled around to the other side of the car and popped the trunk, loading in her rusted bike with ease. He fell into the driver's seat next to her with an amiable sigh a moment later, turning the key in the ignition. His Mustang purred in response, ever the loving partner in crime.  
  
"I'm Noah Czerny," he said as an afterthought, as careless and unpracticed as his movements. He said it like she ought to know what that meant. She shrugged one shoulder easily and shut her car door with the hand that wasn't currently clutching his phone.  
  
Noah hooted at her response, eyes still alight. "And you give no shits," he said delightedly, as though it wasn't often that someone wasn't familiar with his name and gave no shits. "Sweet. Anonymous at last. Fucking sweet."  
  
Noah didn't apologize for his swearing or the God-awful way he accelerated from zero to forty in less than a few seconds. She had to admire that, at least. He seemed to like the idea of being unknown, and she couldn't help but feel curious as to why. Did Aglionby boys really hate having their names scrawled in the sky, painted on every surface of Henrietta?  
  
Noah hummed a tune she wasn't familiar with, tapping his fingers against the gearshift. No, she decided. No, the other Aglionby boys weren't like this one. Something about him screamed 'different' in the best way possible. "I have a little sister around your age," Noah went on conversationally, not phased in the slightest by her silence. "She doesn't give a shit about our last name, either. You two would get along."  
  
Aurelia thought it was quite possible that they would, but all she said was: "I need to go to the gas station to get milk."  
  
Noah bobbed his head, either to the beat of the music he was humming or to answer her. They continued driving down the road in relative silence until the convenience store appeared in the distance, it's two pumps leaning to the side slightly. Aurelia blinked and blinked. Or maybe her head was still fuzzy from the fall.  
  
Noah's big doe eyes caught her disoriented look and then, without much preamble, he shoved the squished, unopened juice box into her free hand. "I chewed on the straw already," he said by way of explanation, as if her incredulous look was because of the juice box's lack of a straw. His smile was slightly concerned and slightly vacant, like he was trying his best to focus on the road in front of him. He was odd. She said so aloud, because she figured someone like Noah wouldn't mind it all that much.  
  
Noah let out a loud, gleeful laugh that almost made her smile. Almost. "Whelk says the same thing. Same thing, all the time. Dick," Noah added fondly. She did smile at that, fleetingly. "Some best friend he is, dragging me around looking for magic things." Noah pulled into the gas station without really putting on the brakes. Her hurt knee jostled against the side of the door, but she said nothing. She wanted to yelp. Noah didn't notice. "I told him that there are magic things around all the time, y'know? All the time. Like..." Noah squinted, glancing around the nearly empty lot. It didn't look like there was anything magic around. Just dirt and ancient cars. But then he pointed, quite decidedly, and said: "There. That cloud. That looks like a dolphin on a fucking motorcycle."  
  
It did, in fact, look like a dolphin on a motorcycle. She wouldn't really consider that magic, though. Noah hopped out of the car and rummaged around in the backseat. He hit his head on the roof of the car before pulling the rummaged-for item into the light of day, a litany of curses spilling out with it. It was a skateboard, scratched in a way that let her know that this Aglionby boy knew how to ride it. Unlike his car, it wasn't for show. Noah dropped the board to the ground unceremoniously and gave a breathless laugh. "Do you believe in magic, kiddo? Ever heard of a ley line?"  
  
She didn't, and she hadn't. She had stopped believing in a lot of things before she had even met Adam Parrish. Noah Czerny had stumbled upon a child who had put away childish things. She instead mowed her brown lawn and rode her bike to the gas station for milk. Magic didn't favor the unfortunate--Noah only saw it because he had been born into a world with polished silver spoons and glossy cars. "What's a ley line?" she asked, because it was clear Noah wanted to impart some sort of knowledge to her. She opened her door and slid out, cell phone in one hand, crushed juice box in the other, waiting for an answer. She poked a hole in the top of it and sucked on the opening, and was unpleasantly surprised by how tart the juice was. She wrinkled her nose. Cranberry, the bane of her existence.  
  
Noah cackled at her expression and steered his skateboard over to her side of the car. "Tastes like shit, yeah? That's why I chew on the straw." Noah gave an airy wave. "My sister loves those."  
  
Aurelia wasn't sure if she'd like Noah's sister after all.  
  
"So ley lines, kiddo. Ley lines. Whelk loves them, he could tell you things that would make your head spin. No, actually. He drools over this stuff. But _I'm_ odd." Noah squinted at the dolphin-on-a-motorcycle cloud. "Yeah. So basically, they're electric currents. Energy is built up there, and it makes things strange. Strange and magical. But this ley line, the one in Henrietta, it's asleep." He frowned, and she wondered if sleeping ley lines were the bane of Noah's existence. "Whelk wants to wake it up so the magic will come to the surface. He's set on it, kiddo. He wants it more than anything." Noah's eyes glazed over for half of a second, but then he shook his head and was back to his normal, easy-going self. He squinted at her leg. She squinted at her leg. They squinted at each other.  
  
"That sounds pretty cool," she admitted just as Noah said: "You're probably going to have a battle scar from that cut."  
  
Her long-sleeved shirt, with its stretched out neck, had slipped off of one shoulder when she leaned over to examine her knee. The shoulder bared to the light of day was mottled by a purple, hand-shaped bruise. She was quick to tug up the uncooperative material, instantly self-conscious. Noah didn't stare, but he did look off into the distance grimly. Talk of ley lines seemed distant now. She was immediately disappointed and angry with herself. All people seemed to see of her were the marks her father left on her skin. She longed for Adam, in that moment, because they were the same in many ways and maybe then Noah would look grimly into the distance because of Adam's bruises instead of her own. Then she realized how selfish that thought was and promptly shut it down.  
  
"Cranberry juice does taste like shit," she stated, and that startled a laugh out of Noah. There. The odd, lovely boy was back.  
  
"Damn straight, kiddo. Let's go get you some bandages for that knee, huh?" Then he held out a hand to her, still balancing precariously on his skateboard. She didn't particularly trust the thing, but she was starting to trust Noah, so she pressed his cellphone into his outstretched hand and stepped onto the back of the skateboard, letting the shitty cranberry juice box fall to the ground. Then she gripped the back of Noah's shirt tightly as he propelled them forward.  
  
To his credit, Noah steered his skateboard with far more dignity than his car. She wondered why that was. Noah seemed to pull her question right out of the air and said simply: "The things I'm gentle with get hurt the most." Something about his words pierced her chest. It didn't make sense, but then again, it did. Funny how that worked.  
  
Noah skidded to an easy halt, putting his hand behind him to steady her, but careful to avoid touching her bruised shoulder. "Bam. Shithole gas station ahead, kiddo. Enter with caution." She grinned behind her hand and followed Noah to the door. He opened it with flourish, like he was announcing a princess. It made him look ridiculous. It made her giddy. It made the bell jangle loudly against the glass in protest.  
  
The girl behind the counter looked disinterested with everything, especially their entrance. Her dark eyes were heavy lidded and the gum she was chomping was being chomped half-heartedly. Aurelia figured that if someone was going to chomp gum, it ought to be with gusto.  
  
Noah was humming again. He didn't pay any attention to the clerk's disinterest, simply matching it with his own. Noah's attention was a fickle thing.  
  
His humming turned to whistling when he walked down the medical aisle, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. He had horrible posture. But so did she. Noah grabbed the first ointment and bandages he saw and then moved on to bigger and better things. Like mini jaw breakers and other candy she couldn't afford in the next aisle over. She gazed at them wistfully and trailed after Noah, her fingers cluching the threadbare fabric of her shirt tightly. She stopped at the end of the aisle, however, when something caught her eye.  
  
A snow globe. Perfectly out of place and wonderfully present, with a little sandman on a white sandy beach. The front of it read 'beach bum central', which was odd because there were no beaches close to Henrietta. There was glitter littering the bottom of the snow globe, mingling with the sand.  
  
She wanted it badly.  
  
Noah realized a moment later that she was no longer behind him and made his way back to her slowly, his arms full of ointment and candy and bandages.  
  
He grinned when he saw the snow globe, adding it to the pile before she could do anything more than make a tiny noise of protest. "C'mon, kiddo. C'mon, there is glitter in this thing. Glitter. You know you want it. Yeah. I thought so. Now go get your milk and meet me at the counter, pronto. I want to see if the girl up there knows how to blink."  
  
Aurelia swallowed back a laugh. The girl at the counter looked less disinterested and infinitely more displeased. She had definitely heard Noah. Aurelia went to the back and got her milk, pronto, just as Noah had asked. There was still blood trickling down her leg. She frowned at it, as though that would will it to stop, and then met Noah at the front, the cool milk jug pressed to her chest. Noah was buying cigarettes with his melee of other items. "For Whelk," he explained when she turned up her nose at the sight. "I don't smoke anything with tobacco in it." That wasn't exactly comforting, but she merely shrugged at his answer.  
  
The girl behind the counter droned out a total that made her heart seize. She had enough money for her milk, right? She dug a shaky hand into her pocket to retrieve her change, but Noah beat her to the punchline. He had his credit card out and swiped before she could even pull her hand out of her pocket. "It's covered, kiddo. Least I could do after I almost ran you over." Counter Girl blinked at them, which probably meant she was surprised.  
  
She could blink after all.  
  
Aurelia was close on Noah's heels when he threw open the door with one hand, bags in the other, and stepped out into the golden evening.  
  
Noah kicked up his skateboard into his waiting hand and then slowed his pace to match hers as they made their way to the crimson Mustang a few yards away. Noah was quick to throw the bags into the backseat, and then he ambled over to the passenger side, the gauze bandage and ointment in his hands. He squatted down and went to work, rubbing cream across the wound as gently as he could. A hiss still escaped from between her clenched teeth.  
  
Noah stopped his ministrations for a second. "Think about something else, okay?" he suggested. "Like your snow globe or the candy." He reached around her and strained for the bag in backseat, finally managing to grasp her snow globe and a cherry sucker. She unwrapped the sucker and popped it into her mouth, swirling it between her teeth and her tongue as she gazed down at the snow globe on her lap. Tears still pricked in her eyes when Noah went back to cleaning the wound.  
  
But then he began to sing. It was slightly off-key but lovely just the same. It was the tune he had been humming all evening, she realized.  
  
_Sometimes solutions aren't so simple, Sometimes goodbye's the only way. And the sun will set for you, and the sun will set for you. And the shadow of the day will embrace the world in gray And the sun will set for you._  
  
She was so distracted by Noah's song that she didn't even have time to think about her pain. Before she knew it, he had stopped singing softly and said: "Good as new, kiddo."  
  
She glanced down at her bandaged knee and then to the sweating jug of milk in the floorboards, resting against her feet. "Thank you." The words were soft and sincere. An Aglionby boy that fixed what he damaged...What a strange creature indeed.  
  
Noah smiled and stood, brushing off his rumpled uniform. It did no good. "No problem. Ready to go home?"  
  
She stiffened but nodded, because she knew her father would be home from work soon and her mother would start to question what took her so long to get the milk. The last thing she wanted to hear today was 'Aurelia Jean'. Noah waited until she put both legs into the car and then shut the door, loping back around to his side of the vehicle with his skateboard in tow. He chucked it into the backseat and then pulled out a sucker of his own, his eyebrows furrowing as he slid into his seat. The new leather squeaked a protest. Noah asked her where she lived.  
  
Honestly, she would rather have struggled home on her bike with a hurt knee and a gallon of milk slowing her down than have Noah--magic-believing, quirky Noah--drive to her house. Noah looked decidedly unaffected when they pulled up a few houses away from her rusted single-wide trailer, though. She held her snow globe so tightly that she was sure it would crack. Her sucker was gone, leaving nothing but its stick in her mouth and its residue on her lips. Noah watched her quietly as she opened the door and spit the soggy stick out, and then carefully stuck her snow globe up the sleeve of her shirt. She hauled the milk onto her lap; the cold made her skin prickle with goosebumps.  
  
The door had been cracked open, but now she flung it out in a wide arc, suddenly angry because this had been nice and Noah was nice. Angry because she knew this would never happen again.  
  
Wordlessly, Noah popped the trunk, and she unloaded her bike clumsily, one-handed. She began to march away, but Noah opened his door before she could get very far. He did it in a desperate sort of way that made her freeze. Something in his gaze was alive and burning and in pain and happy. Noah was a conundrum. "Sorry again, kiddo. I'll keep my eyes on the road from now on." He laughed tonelessly. She hated it. It didn't match him. "Whelk will shit bricks when I tell him why I'm late." He pulled his sucker out of his mouth and stared at it. "But maybe not," he said softly. His fair hair fluttered in the breeze, making him look otherwordly for a moment.  
  
It knocked something inside of her loose. She got a better grip on the milk and her bike and made her way closer to him until they were face to face. Noah was still sitting in his car, and he looked miserable about it. He looked like he wanted to drive away with her so she could meet his little sister, so they could complain about shitty cranberry juice and annoy gas station clerks and shake her snow globe and ride his skateboard to find those magic things he was talking about. He looked like he wanted to save her and had no idea how. "I'm not a good person," he whispered, delicately, like it might have been the most truthful thing he had ever said. She didn't really believe that. She hoped he didn't, either.  
  
Something inside of her was screaming. In another life, Noah might have been able to save her. But maybe in this one, she could save him. She let her bike rest against her leg and touched his cheek with her first two fingers. There was a shadow there, or there would be a shadow there soon. Something awful was going to happen, or had happened already. It was mixed up in her head. Time was no good when it was circular.  
  
"Be careful," she told him, because it was the only thing that made sense. He nodded slowly, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. She didn't wait for him to say anything else--she simply turned around and started to push her bike toward her house. Dread ate at her insides when Noah started his Mustang and reluctantly drove away.  
  
*********************************  
  
The next day, it was broadcasted on the evening news that an Aglionby student had gone missing. She had been half-heartedly eating her greens when she heard the announcement. She nearly promptly threw them back up after she heard it. She crept to the living room, fear an alive thing in her gut. There was a picture of a boy on the screen, a fair haired boy with laughing dark eyes and a crooked grin. Noah Czerny, the news anchor said sadly. Noah. Just Noah, the boy with the pretty car and the delighted laugh. The boy who believed in the magic of mundane things.  
  
Missing.  
  
Gone.  
  
She wanted to be sick.  
  
Later that night, after all of the lights in her house winked out and her parents were fast asleep, she retrieved her snow globe from where she had stashed it in her dresser and held it close to her heart. When she curled around it on her bed, she was trembling. Tears were streaming relentlessly down her face. She gave the snow globe a feeble shake and watched as the glitter swirled around, painfully mesmerizing. A sob built in her throat, burning, but she swallowed it down quickly. Noah's voice was playing in her mind on repeat, endless laughter and 'kiddo' mixing together as one. _I have a little sister around your age_ , he had said. _I'm not a good person_ , he had said. _The things I'm gentle with get hurt the most_ , he had said.  
  
She wondered if Noah had been gentle with himself when they met.  
  
When she finally drifted off to sleep, she dreamed that he was walking alongside of her down the road where he had almost hit her with his Mustang. His hands were tucked deep into his pockets and his shoulders were curled inward. The mark under his eye was a blisteringly present thing, but in that moment, so was he. The road stretched out in front of them, inviting and endless.  
  
"I won't forget," she whispered.  
  
He smiled over at her sadly. "Don't make promises you can't keep, kiddo."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried my best to capture Noah how I think he would have been when he was alive, from the perspective of a ten year old girl. He said he had been more, once. I had to decide more of what. Hope you enjoyed it!


	3. Mess is mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan Lynch didn't seem like the sort of person that would ever give her a second glance.
> 
> But when she got caught in the crossfire of his gaze, it became impossible to escape him or his life.

The first day she walked into mass, a cataclysmic storm outside ripped the polished mahogany doors off of their hinges, busted in the stained glass windows, and let its shrieking wind give sermon.  
  
Well, not really. She wished there was a storm that could do such a thing, because that would have prevented her from wearing an ironed dress and pantyhose that itched and awful heeled shoes that weren't clogs, but could have easily been their distant, far uglier cousin.  
  
She hadn't realized upon entering the building that the real storm was lingering inside, simmering in the guise of a boy.  
  
She hadn't realized many things.  
  
Religion had never been a part of her life. She knew it like she knew math formulas--faintly, and with not much interest. It had never occurred to her that one day she might have to step foot into a church. It never occurred to her because her father was so adamantly against it, and that was enough for her to steer clear of the thought. But her mother...her mother had been raised in a Catholic household with Catholic teachings and had always longed for her daughter to see that distant, dusty part of her.  
  
Aurelia didn't have the same longing.  
  
She had spent twelve years of her life just pushing to survive, struggling to believe in herself. She didn't have room inside of her to believe in someone else. She had tried that before. Adam's eyes followed her sometimes when she hung up her family's clothes to dry outside because of their finicky dryer, but he never breathed a word to her. Noah had given her a snow globe and hope to go along with it, but then disappeared afterward like he had never even existed. She didn't do well believing in people because when she started to, they vanished.  
  
She was afraid that if she believed in God, He too would surely fade away and take everything good left in the world with Him. It was better to just let others have Him.  
  
She wanted to say that to her Aunt Celine, who had taken it upon herself to drive to Henrietta to try to save her niece's soul. Aunt Celine was a tall, thin woman with a narrow face and pretty green eyes and honeyed hair that she always curled. She worked as an elementary school teacher in West Virginia, which, in her mind, made her qualified to handle all children and their souls. She was the sister of Aurelia's mother, but they weren't very much alike. Celine was happily married and had a nice house and money to burn. She felt like it was her duty to give Aurelia some structure in her life, so she had announced her impending visit the day before she came, and she then she appeared toting an outfit that made Aurelia cringe.  
  
Needless to say, she was miserable as soon as they walked into the church late, and hyperaware of everyone's eyes on her. As she walked down the center aisle, her not-clogs making an obnoxious amount of noise as she went, Aurelia began to wish that she hadn't been so difficult in the car. They could have possibly avoided all of the staring if they had been on time.  
  
The only problem was that no one was staring outright. She could feel their gazes resting on her, assessing and guessing, but only after she had passed the pews where they stood. It was more unsettling than someone glaring daggers at her. She figured they thought it was the more polite option, but she didn't care much for polite.  
  
There was one person, however, that seemed to have thrown that etiquette to the wind. Or, perhaps, was the very wind that swept all etiquette away. The boy was around her age, with dark, wild hair that curled at the ends and cobalt eyes framed by thick lashes. He lounged halfway in the aisle and halfway in the pew, those odd eyes of his narrowed in her direction as she walked by. There was something vicious about the set of his mouth, the sharp angles of his jaw and his cheekbones. The longer she looked at him, the more dangerous he became. He wasn't a storm, but a hurricane. Not a hurricane, but the apocalypse, fantastic and horrible. A world-changer.  
  
Aurelia was convinced that the thing in front of her wasn't a boy at all.  
  
He had his sleeves shoved haphazardly up his arms and his necktie loose in between his slim fingers, and that should have eased the whirring in her mind. But with one glance over at his mother, a woman with an affable expression on her face and gold-spun hair, and his brothers, one tall and dark and haughty and the other plump and fair and shining---Aurelia knew. She knew that he was not the same as them, and that he very much did not want to be the same. He was boy-shaped, but so much more than a boy.  
  
She wasn't sure how one long look could tell her this, but she knew it now like she knew her own name. She got inklings, and they were always right. She knew Adam Parrish was destined for something terrible and grand. She had known Noah Czerny would be lost or had already been lost.  
  
And she knew that this boy had the ability to bring the world to its knees or rebuild it. She should have been terrified of him, but as Aunt Celine guided her into the pew in front of the apocalypse-of-a-boy and his mismatched family, she realized that she wasn't.  
  
She was curious.  
  
She didn't dare turn around to look at him, though. Celine was frowning delicately. It didn't suit her face. Her aunt leaned down and breathed: "We missed the gloria. They're having silent prayers right now, so close your eyes and repent."  
  
Aurelia closed her eyes, but she wasn't sure what she was really supposed to be doing. She could pray for her dad to stop hurting her, for the ability to escape her home and her life. She could pray for something better than all of this. Tears pooled behind her closed eyes, and she fought back an ugly sob. This wasn't the place for it. _This isn't the place for it, _she reminded herself.__  
  
There was a firm tug on her dress from behind. She turned, startled, and looked down at the cherub boy with the golden curls. He was maybe around eight or nine, but his disposition made him seem younger. His innocence was a brilliant thing, resting on his shoulders and the dimples on his cheeks. "Are you okay?" he asked in a stage-whisper. He was gazing at her so earnestly that she couldn't even be angry.  
  
A single tear slid down her cheek in rebellion. "Matthew," came a horrified hiss a moment later. The eldest of the impossible brothers looked embarrassed, his eyes narrowed in scorn. "Now is not the time for conversation." Their angel of a mother hummed, but whether it was in agreement or simply a part of her prayer, Aurelia didn't know. By now, several people were staring at her again.  
  
It was overwhelming. She wanted to scream. The boy-who-was-more had stopped glaring and was now simply frowning, his hand resting on his younger brother's shoulder. There was something questioning in his eyes, though he tried to hide it. It was too much.  
  
She bolted. Down the aisle she had walked not even ten minutes before, out of the main room in no more than a couple seconds. She didn't know where she was going, but that didn't stop her from running. _Away _was good enough for her. Her not-clogs made a hideous scraping sound against the ornate floor, and in her haste, one of them tripped her up and sent her sprawling. Her head cracked against a stair, making her see an explosion of red and purple stars. She didn't know why she had run, really, because now things would be so much worse. Aunt Celine had pitied her, at least. Now she would simply look at her with contempt because she had ruined mass.__  
  
Aurelia bit her lower lip until she tasted blood. It steadied her momentarily, long enough for her to try to gather her bearings. She looked around dazedly, taking in the long, warped wooden staircase in front of her and the narrow hallway she had stumbled into. She was somewhere at the back of the church, by the looks of it. Some small part of her hoped that she wouldn't be found.  
  
She wasn't so lucky.  
"Why the hell are you on the floor?"  
  
Her whole entire body tensed. The voice should have been unfamiliar, because she was sure she hadn't heard it before. But it pulled at her heart, painful and known. She blinked sluggishly. The apocalypse was standing behind her when she looked over her shoulder, bathed in the glow of the light from the stained glass window at his back. It cast purple and green hues across the planes of his face and the slope of his shoulders, rendering him statuesque and terrible.  
  
He didn't look impressed to see her sprawled out on the ground, and his question was more of a demand. She tried to summon anger to wield, but it wasn't there to grasp.  
  
She simply licked the blood off of her bottom lip, wincing at the irony tang, and tilted up her chin to meet his gaze levelly. She felt ridiculous. She probably looked ridiculous. "I fell and hit my head," she told him with as much dignity as she could muster. It wasn't much.  
  
The boy's lips curled back in what could have been a smirk or a snarl. She couldn't tell in the dim lighting. "Prayer really scares you that much?" he asked, his hands deep in the pockets of his dress pants. "I'd hate to see you in confession."  
  
He was teasing her. Her anger suddenly surged, found, and she pushed herself to her feet. The boy was only a few inches taller than her. She wasn't going to let him make her feel small. "Isn't the point of confession privacy?" she pointed out coldly, adjusting her horrible shoes and dusting off her dress. Her head was throbbing. The boy came closer, still wearing his dangerous smirk.  
  
"Sure. If you have something to hide, maybe. Everyone sticks their nose in everyone else's business around here. They love bullshit." He said the words with relish, as though the curse was the blackest thing he could have said in church.  
  
Something about him was infuriating. And it wasn't his words. She squinted and rubbed her head. It was that voice.. "Whatever. Have we met?"  
  
He gave her a once over, as though he was just now noticing what she was wearing, taking in the cheap, thick material of her dress and her ugly shoes. Her cheeks heated up in embarrassment. He didn't even need to say anything about her appearance---she could feel his judgement weighing on her heavily. "I don't think so," he finally replied. It was the very particular way he said it that made her stomach clench. _"You look the trailer park _," her aunt had fretted before they went shopping. _"Not just your clothes, A.J. You have that look to you, honey. Just smile more. Stop slouching." _____  
  
This boy had driven a stake through her chest too easily. She was normally much harder than this, granite craved into the shape of a girl. She whirled around and took the steps two at a time, wanting desperately to get away from him. He wasn't natural, and the knowledge of this curled in the pit of her stomach. She felt like she was trapped in a nightmare she would never escape. The stairs groaned under her weight as she ran up them, and she was left panting when she reached the top. She flung open the door at the end of the stairs and nearly toppled inside the room it had been hiding. She was startled by the easy give of the wood, and it took her a second to straighten herself and look around.  
  
The room in front of her was tiny and very nearly barren--there were a few items of furniture underneath musty sheets that hugged each wall, and a rocking chair in the far right corner that looked like it had seen better days. She rubbed her nose, glaring at the dust motes that swirled around her head. The light streaming in from the lone window opposite of her made them evident. The boy, in all of his disdainful glory, ran up the stairs after her and emerged in the doorway looking slightly flushed. "I didn't know there was a room above the rectory," he said wonderingly. For a moment, there was very much something like his younger brother, Matthew, in his eyes. But it winked out of existence as soon as he crossed his arms over his thin chest and trained his gaze on her.  
  
She wished he would go back to the service and leave her alone. She told him so, vehemently.  
  
"Why?" the boy countered with a sneer. "So you can fall down these stairs and crack your head open?"  
  
"What do you care?" Her voice was so loud and trembling that it made the boy blink in surprise. "Why would it matter?" Her words were shrill. "No one would give a shit anyway!" She let her hands ball into fists, a terrible anger thrumming through her now. It was an ugly, familiar thing. Her father wore it like an expensive coat, but she buried it deep, deep within her. She wanted to believe that she was different, that she had a great destiny like Adam or a heart like Noah's or even the otherness of the boy in front of her. She wanted to believe that she had a place in all of this.  
  
But wanting something did not make it real. Dreams couldn't be turned into reality that easily.  
  
She buried her face in her hands. Weak. She was weak. She didn't know why she had let her aunt drag her here. There was no repenting for her. Her father had given a nasty laugh when Celine told him that his daughter's soul was in peril.  
  
_"Soul?" _he had snorted. _"What soul?" _____  
"Just leave me alone!" she sobbed, hands still covering her face. She didn't want to let him have this sort of power over her, but she couldn't stop the misery spilling out of her like a dam had burst. "I--I don't need this. I don't need you to be here." She was breathing raggedly. It felt like glass was wedged in her throat. "What _are _you?" she choked. The words skittered out of her mouth before she could control them. Her own demand.__  
  
There was silence, and it seemed to stretch out endlessly. She peeked through her fingers, her chest still heaving. She was lightheaded and heavy-hearted. The boy stood there, motionless and pale. He was staring at her as though he was seeing her in a new light, as though all the words they had exchanged thus far had been wiped away. He didn't look so much like an apocalypse, then. He looked desperate for an answer, as though her question was the same one he asked himself every night before he went to sleep.  
  
Vulnerability was something of a noose around his neck, stilling him, choking him. His raucous energy was hushed, and then she could see him--a boy. A boy who felt fear and had an overwhelming desire to understand. "I don't know," he finally sighed, his long lashes scraping his cheekbones.  
  
They regarded each other again carefully, trying to gauge the other's willingness to listen. They had both been underestimated. "I'm Ronan," the boy-who-was-more admitted, as if this too was one of his greatest secrets. She figured he didn't often let his name grace other's lips, if he could help it. It was hard to put a name to a face like that, a title to something as incomprehensible as him. It made him more human, somehow.  
  
She realized that he was offering to show her the real him, not just the razor-sharp mask he wore.  
It terrified and thrilled her.  
  
"My name's Aurelia," she said slowly, searching his open expression for signs of insincerity. Too often had she tried to make connections only to have them ruthlessly ripped away. "Why did you come after me?"  
  
Ronan's brows furrowed. His mouth was doing something difficult. "Matthew wanted me to," he finally grumbled. "He would have thrown a fit if I said no. Declan tried to tell _me _no, but I told him to piss up a rope, so." And there was that dangerous, feral grin of his again, erasing his vulnerability in one fell swoop. Ronan crouched down and then sprawled out of the dusty floor, placing his arms behind his head and looking up at her expectantly once he got situated. The judgement was gone from his eyes. Acceptance rested in them instead, reluctant and eager all at once. He wanted someone who could know him.__  
  
She sat down beside him and fiddled with a piece of her hair. It was waist-length now, and the years had made it thicker and darker, more honey-blonde like her aunt's. Ronan watched her for a moment, his fingers trailing absentmindedly through the grime collected on the floorboards. He drew some sort of flower there in great detail. "What do you dream about?" he asked her softly. The question should have seemed out of place, but it wasn't.  
  
"Terrible things," she replied. There was no hesitation in her answer. Ronan seemed to value the truth because instead of pushing her to explain, he simply nodded sagely and went back to drawing. Anyone else would have pushed her, she knew. But Ronan was not like anyone else.  
  
Sometimes when she slept she saw the tree where Adam stored his books running with her blood. Sometimes she saw the road where Noah had almost hit her doing the same. Sometimes she dreamed of Adam holding a mask that was too big for him, something that could swallow him whole. Sometimes she dreamed of Noah grinning, but then his flesh would peel away to reveal a bleached skull underneath and the skull would give an echoing, gutteral cry. Sometimes another boy would trade places with Noah on the road they normally walked, a boy with quizzical hazel eyes and glasses. He was always covered from head to toe in sting marks, and he pointed in the distance to something she could not see.  
  
But mostly, she dreamed of her father. Those were always the worst nightmares. Terrible things...  
  
Ronan's eyes were closed when she looked back over at him. The hard edges of his face had softened considerably, and his dark eyelashes fanned out over his cheeks as he slept. The soft light streaming in through the lone window bathed him in its golden glow, and Aurelia knew, in that moment, that somehow, somewhen, Ronan would return to this place and look the very same.  
  
It was a comforting realization.  
  
She lay down beside him silently, her own eyelids heavy. Pillowing her head on her arms, she tried not to think about how furious Aunt Celine would be when she saw her dirty dress and drifted off into a fitful sleep.  
  
When she awoke, Ronan was still beside her, but the drawing of the flower that had been between them was not. Puzzled, she examined the floor closely. The dust there was perfectly untouched. She turned to Ronan, questioning, but her words died in her throat when she saw what he was clutching to his chest.  
  
The flower. Completely tangible and most certainly not a drawing. It was the most bizarre thing she had ever seen, with its petals shimming iridescent and its stem as purple as a plum. The thorns of the flower leaked some thick, silvery substance onto Ronan's fingers that looked like mercury. It was impossible, but it was there, resting in his hands. There were none like it, and yet, if Ronan wanted there to be, there could be millions more. The flower was only as impossible as he was.  
  
"I dream of things like this," Ronan told her. His eyes didn't leave the flower. There was a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his lips. She stared at him in awe, leaning toward him so she could get a closer look. He laid the flower in her hand when she held it out tentatively.  
  
Suddenly, Aurelia's reality didn't seem half as real. But it also didn't seem half as bad.  
  
**************  
  
She had know Ronan Lynch for half a year now. And in those six months, time changed her into someone she could barely recognize. She became bolder and less afraid, and she was quick to laugh and spout sarcastic remarks. And it was all thanks to a stubborn boy.  
  
After her first horrendous mass service, she continued going every Sunday with her mother, practically begging to attend. He father had sneered at the idea, but her mother had been thankful. But she also didn't know that her daughter had been more taken with a boy and his impossible dreams than the word of the Lord.  
  
As time passed, Ronan grew, too, in ways she hadn't been expecting. He was open with her to a degree--at least to the point where she could say he was her closest friend. Still usually incredibly caustic, and wild in the times he was not biting, Ronan was hard to know. Or rather, for others, it was hard to accept all that was Ronan. He was multi-faceted in the best of ways--complicated when it came to putting his feelings into words and easy when it came to turning his feelings into actions. The wonderful thing about knowing Ronan Lynch was the fact that once you knew him, all other things seemed knowable.  
  
While they were busy growing acquainted with one another, Ronan turned thirteen a few weeks before her and grew several inches taller than she was, becoming lithe rather than awkwardly fumbling. It seemed as though the Lynch boys were exempt from most of the woes that plagued newly-teenaged boys.  
  
It some ways, that is.  
  
It didn't take her long to notice that Ronan wasn't the only one who watched her when she sang hymns in church or jumped rope in the parking lot after the service. Declan Lynch, in all of his haughty and firm-jawed glory, had set his gaze on her too many times for it to simply be coincidence. And while Ronan seemed to stare because he felt like she would disappear if he didn't, Declan's gaze was far less concerned and far more intrigued.  
  
Aurelia liked Declan well enough--he made pleasant conversation and talked about school work so emphatically that she couldn't help but grin. He was also fiercely protective of both Ronan and Matthew, though he would sooner be punched in the face than admit the former. But he lacked the greatness of his brothers--Matthew's gentleness and Ronan's otherness. Declan Lynch was good at many things, but he was only _great _at lying.__  
  
Yet that hadn't always been so.  
  
She was the one who had made Declan a liar in the first place.  
  
"Do you want to kiss me?" she asked him buntly one day after mass. The autumn evening was warmer than usual, so they were sitting in the shade of a maple tree at the back of the church, watching as Ronan hoisted Matthew into a sapling a few yards away. The younger Lynch brothers remained oblivious to their conversation.  
  
Declan went pink at her question, the flush creeping up his neck and spreading traitorously to his pale cheeks. "No," he immediately snapped, looking down at his fidgeting hands. She had never seen Declan fidget before. It made her curious. She leaned closer until her breath was ghosting his face and she could see a light sheen of sweat on his upper lip. Declan's eyes seemed more black than blue in the dim light. He was built more solidly than Ronan, even though he was just a little bit over a year older than him. Declan's square shoulders and that winning smile of his were an invitation for conversation more mature than his years. People normally didn't see Declan's brand of dangerousness until it was too late, but she had keyed in on it early. There was no danger lurking in his eyes now.  
  
Declan's lips pressed to hers much more gently than what she was anticipating. They were softer than what she had imagined, too, and she tried to slot her lips to fit his. She had never done this before. She'd never had the opportunity, in the past. Boys at school knew her too well, and they wanted nothing to do with her. They said she was odd, but she tended to take it as a compliment because that's what Noah had dubbed himself. But here, at the church, she was another creature. A girl who knew about the wonders of the Lynch family and remained unafraid. Declan wanted her, for unknown reasons. And she simply wanted to be wanted.  
  
Declan's kissing was sloppy but careful, like he had been presented an equation that he was trying to puzzle out. His fingers cupped her cheeks reverentially, and she tilted her head to give him a better angle. The inexperience of the kiss let her know that it was his first one, because Declan only accepted being anything less than perfect if it was his first time doing it. Their teeth clashed together suddenly, inevitably, and it made her cringe and Declan pull away. His eyes were still dark, wanting, and his lips were swollen. His fingers traced her cheekbones with his thumbs, those hard eyes of his going incredibly soft. She had unraveled a Lynch.  
  
The thought should have made her happy, but she had a sick feeling burning in the back of her throat. Declan had enjoyed the kiss, but had she? She had wanted him to kiss her, but only to quell her curiosity. She didn't long for Declan like he longed for her. But the kiss should have made her feel _something _.__  
  
But it didn't. She was left with red lips and an unraveled Declan and the knowledge that the kiss had done nothing and meant nothing to her.  
  
"That was nice," she told Declan quietly, but something in her eyes must have have said otherwise because suddenly he was jerking away, and suddenly he was standing above her, and suddenly all the warmth of the evening was being pulled into the vaccuum that was Declan Lynch.  
  
"Why did you ask me that if you didn't want to be kissed?" he demanded, hurt. It was etched into every line of his profile, and his hands balled up into fists as a response. "What, was that not good enough for you?" His tone made her flinch away, her back hitting the maple tree. Dried leaves crunched under her. "Do they do it better in the trailer park?" This Declan was unpredictable, wild in his hurt and anger. Panic thrummed inside of her, horrific and familiar. He almost looked like..."Or would you rather have kissed Ronan?" He shook his head in disgust when she didn't answer. He took a step back, and then another. "Of course. Well, then, go ahead. See if you can stomach him."  
  
And then Declan was storming back to the church and Ronan was storming toward her, his eyes on Declan. Matthew watched on from his sapling, as golden as the evening sunlight. She only realized that she as crying when Ronan knelt down beside her and pushed his shoulder against hers. They were silent tears--she had learned years ago how to express her pain without a sound. It always made Ronan anxious to see her like this. His emotions were loud and agressive, which was the exact opposite of what she allowed herself to be. He didn't know how to handle her like this.  
  
"Do you want to kiss me?" she asked him miserably. Tears dripped freely down her cheeks. Ronan gave her a level look, one hand in his dark hair and the other fisted in the grass. There was no discomfort in his eyes, and he didn't blush.  
  
"The fuck would I want to do that for?" he scoffed, and his answer made relief pool in her veins. She knew Ronan wouldn't let her down. Ronan expressed his want for her company by simply interacting with her. He didn't need anymore than that, didn't want to kiss her or hold her or demand more than she was capable of giving. She had known that, deep down, but to hear him say it...  
  
Her breathing evened out as she rested her head on Ronan's shoulder. They functioned fluidly after all this time, understanding each other in ways they couldn't have even fathomed a few months ago. "You want to kiss me, 'Relia?" he asked. Ronan's question was attentive, like he would consider kissing her if that's what she really wanted.  
  
She shook her head slowly. Decidedly. "No. I don't like kissing all that much, " she admitted, and Ronan gave a laugh that could have warmed any day. She wanted to bottle it.  
  
"Good. Because you're like my sister and that would be weird as hell."  
  
She grinned, her tears forgotten, and shoved Ronan to the side. He gave an indignant squawk when several of his dress shirt buttons popped off after he hit the ground and rolled. His pants had grass stains to match. Ronan swore, still laughing, and was about to throw a wad of moss at her when Matthew's squeal pierced the air.  
  
They both turned, ready to jump and run to his aid. But Matthew wasn't in trouble. He was sprinting toward them with his arms above his head, his dress shirt untucked and his feet bare. If her mother had seen him, she would have clucked her tongue. But her mother was busy conversing with Aurora, and Aurora only ever gave her boys easy smiles and told them to have fun.  
  
Matthew was out of breath by the time he made it to them, but he was still delighted, his eyes crinkling at the corners to try to make room for his million-watt grin. "Put those dimples away before you hurt someone, Mattie," she told him teasingly, but Matthew paid her no mind. He was too busy directing his excitement at his brother.  
  
"Ronan!" he finally gasped when he could breathe. "Dad is back! Mom said Dad is back! He's at home right now!"  
  
Aurelia looked over at Ronan, her smile dropping. Ronan, on the other hand, had never looked more thrilled. He was trying to tone it down, trying to rein it in, but the news of Niall Lynch's return was enough to make him sit up straight and beam at Matthew.  
  
The news was enough to fill her with apprehension. She had heard amazing things about Niall--that his birth had caused monstrous natural disasters, that he created items that were impossible, that all of his baubles and trinkets had different, more fantastical functions than normal baubles and trinkets. That he could dream living beings into existence. But all of those feats were stifled by the fact Niall was gone more often than not, and he liked to stay that way. He had been gone for eight months this time.  
  
She couldn't share Ronan's enthusiasm because while Niall's adoration for his middle son was evident, his acceptance of her remained to be seen. Ronan had said she was like a sister to him, but if Niall met her and disliked her, or worse, was indifferent toward her, who was to say that Ronan wouldn't act the same? Ronan had even said in the past that people that Niall didn't like weren't worth his time.  
  
Out of habit, she clutched Ronan's shirt sleeve tightly in her grip. The happiness in his eyes made him something of splendor--the best parts of him were shining through. She didn't want to be the one to make his happiness fade away, but she was afraid. But then Ronan whispered: "Come to the Barns with us, 'Relia," and she felt that fear ebbing away into the autumnal shadows.  
  
The Barns. Ronan never invited anyone to come to the Barns. He never had friends come to meet his father. She felt overwhelmingly touched by his offer, whole in a way she hadn't felt in a long time.  
  
She wanted to tell Ronan thank you; she wanted to cry again. But she simply dusted off her floral print dress and held out a hand to help Ronan to his feet.  
  
"Please," she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took longer to post than expected. I just moved cross-country, so I hope you'll forgive the delay. More of the brothers Lynch to come!

**Author's Note:**

> I shot Maggie an ask on Tumblr inquiring about Orphan Girl, and since I haven't received an answer yet, I thought I would write the story that has been knocking around in my head ever since. Hope you enjoy!


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